The Spirit of Causality
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: Set during the end of The Spirit stays and the Princess disobeys storyline. Yue meets a spiritual creature that gives her some insight of the future as a result of her actions and reactions. Read and review, please. I want to know what you think. I'm considering that Yue may be deeply involved in the life of Avatar Korra, but I'd like opinions.


Creation began on 01-23-13

Creation ended on 02-01-13

Avatar: The Last Airbender

The Spirit of Causality

A/N: I thought about this for a short while and decided, once I found the correct spelling for a particular word, that this would serve as a anchor of sorts between my previous _Avatar _story and any heading into the _Legend of Korra_ zone. Yue meets somebody that embodies what is, what was and what is now or has yet to come. Onward to the story!

In her bedroom, setting aside her glider staff after having been taught by Avatar Aang several more Airbending techniques (once he had taught many of the surviving Air Nomads that relocated to the Eastern Air Temple, of course), Yue, exhausted, lied down on her bed and drifted off into a nap.

_Airbending is an exhausting element because of all those defensive techniques,_ she thought.

Her bison, Korra, yawned and fell asleep right beside her. Lately, ever since their last visit to Kyoshi Island, Yue and Sokka were left with their dating routine until the capital city for the United Republic of Nations was built to a point where Sokka could stand aside and allow things to progress on its own with the others that would be building there; several people from the South Pole had considered relocating there for the construction and life-changing goals that would be there. However, neither she or Sokka had revealed to her father, Chief Arnook, what they had committed on Kyoshi the last time they were together; the Tribal Princess couldn't find the will just yet to tell her father that she and her true love had crossed the line and consummated their love before they would marry.

_Princess Yue,_ a voice called out to her. _Princess Yue._

Yue opened her eyes and found herself in a misty forest, making her suspect that she was in the Spirit World once more. This would make it the third time she had visited the domain of the spirits that guided the people of the world, the first time having been when she lost consciousness during her stay at the Earth Kingdom Royal Palace and met Avatar Kuruk for the first, and the second time on the same day to meet Avatar Kuruk. While she assumed this was to meet one of the past Avatars again, she went down the lantern-guided path, toward a lake surrounded by mist.

"Hello?" She called out, and the water rippled, just as a large creature arose from the lake. "Aah!"

It reminded her of those creatures called cats, but it looked more like the dragons that Zuko told her about, yet this one seemed more adjusted to life in the water, which would explain its semi-elongated form. There were whiskers on its greenish-blue face, tiny fangs and black and white stripes of soaked fur going down its back to its tail. Its eyes were both mesmerizing and scary; the right one was black while the left was white, as if symbolizing light and darkness, day and night. Then, it approached her on its four, well-endowed and powerful paws, literally walking on the water…until it stopped two feet in front of her, who had assumed a defensive position in case she had to fight, knowing that her bending would be unavailable in the Spirit World.

"I've been waiting for you, Princess Yue," the creature spoke to her, and she let her arms drop to her sides. "I am Inga, the Spirit of Causality."

"The Spirit of Causality?" Yue repeated. "But…that would make you one of the oldest spirits from ancient history. One of the oldest spirits known to people."

"Yes. I am a distant relative of Tui and La, as well as a relative of the Painted Lady spirit, older than Wan Shi Tong by at least three-thousand years, but younger than La, who is younger than Tui."

Yue nodded her head in understanding, then asked Inga why she was in the Spirit World again, since, as far as she knew, the world and its nations were being mended of the scars of war that nearly killed it.

"I am here…to inform you of events that have reshaped the world with your existence," he revealed to her. "Your causality, your actions and reactions…have changed many things in the past to the here and now of the mortal realm. You and Tui's survival of the Northern Water Tribe siege changed everything. After Tui parted away with a measure of her own life energy to save yours, I had foreseen your fate and revealed it to your father, Chief Arnook, that when you came of age, and the tribe was threatened with death and ruination beyond any measure of healing, you would make the ultimate sacrifice to save your people, even though it would deprive you of the one that would love you for you. But I despised that possible future; I may represent causality in all of its forms, but I am not a cruel and uncaring soul. When that night came, when the Firebender, Zhao, had captured Tui, and was subsequently threatened by the Firebender named Iroh, I saw my chance to prevent that awful vision from coming to pass."

Yue then realized where Inga was going with his revelation to her.

"Then…it was you," she uttered. "You helped Avatar Aang that night. You made it so that he was able to save us."

"I guided his eyes and hands," he corrected her; he could affect certain outcomes with his powers, but free will, which was higher than anything ever represented by the spirits, was something that could never be affected because it was meant to be a blessing. "Everything else that happened was all because of the Avatar's unwillingness to allow the Water Tribes to suffer the same fate he believed his people had when he returned home to the Southern Air Temple, completely unaware that he would discover, months later, that his people were still among the living, that their children and their children's children stayed hidden until you and Sokka found them."

Yue then sat on a nearby boulder, wanting to know just how much of her life changed everything to this very day.

"After you left the North Pole to travel with the Avatar and your boyfriend, I had foreseen the changed future, both its small and large alterations: You spared the blind Earthbender, Toph Bei Fong, the fury of Aang's pain at his bison's theft by the Sandbenders that came to take him, and then prevented a family of refugees from having to take the Serpant's Pass by staying with them, allowing them to maintain their valuables and tickets to take the ferry from Full Moon Bay to Ba Sing Se. One of the greatest changes your life being spared caused was the survival of the Earth Kingdom boy named Jet."

"Avatar Kyoshi explained to me that if I prevented a death, I would change the future," she explained to Inga.

"And you did," he expressed, now sitting down on the water. "Whether the spirits older than I am care to admit it or not, the world was going down the path to its salvation, even if it seemed as though the Fire Nation was winning. Every action you performed to do the right thing, to help in the war, to restore balance, caused great reactions that affected future events that were larger than yourself and brought out a great outcome. Your greatest action in the Earth Kingdom was when you spared the Avatar from certain doom."

Yue then remembered the night Princess Azula almost assaulted Aang with a lightning attack…until she leapt up and took the shot for him, even though during that single moment, she had let go of her passion for Sokka to save the Avatar and the world's only hope for balance to be restored.

"If things were left alone and the Avatar had been assaulted in that fashion, he would've been reduced to a coma that would've lasted longer than the one you experienced," Inga revealed, "and then it would've contributed to his later years."

"How would being electrocuted affect him in his future?" Yue asked him.

"When he reflexively entered the Avatar State the night he ran away from the Southern Air Temple to avoid being separated from his guardian, Monk Gyatso, by the rest of the Council of Elders to focus more on his training to end the Fire Nation's early attempts at global domination…and then remained frozen for a century, unchanged by the passing of time, preserved by the power of his past lives, his lifespan was being affected by his body's inability to age beyond that day he became frozen. Nobody can remain as they are without being affected with the possibility of dying much earlier in their life. If affected by the lightning attack, combined with his extremely-lengthy period of being in the Avatar State, he would have lived only to be one-hundred-sixty-six years old, chronologically…because he would've died at the physical age of sixty-six years old. But now, due to your efforts, the current Avatar will live to be older than one-hundred-sixty-six. Heh, he'll be the oldest known male Avatar, having surpassed Kyoshi as the oldest incarnation of the planet in human form."

"Really?" Yue couldn't believe that, because of her saving Aang, that little Air Nomad would now live to be over two-hundred-thirty years old. "What else will happen in the future…if it's alright for me to know this much, please?"

"You will live a long, happy life with the people you love…before passing away in your sleep after attaining great age. Though…I can't tell you when that great age will be; no one's allowed to know much of when, where and how they will die."

Then the Tribal Princess realized there was something else she wanted to know: How would the Air Nomads they had rediscovered at the Western Air Temple be doing in the future?

"What of the Air Nomads?" She asked him. "I should know what will become of them in the future, as they are my distant relatives on my ancestress, Sister Eli's side of the family."

"Heh-heh-heh," Inga chuckled, knowing she would want to know what was to become of the only nation of benders in existence. "The Air Nomads, which are a mere three-hundred-forty-eight right now…will still be the smallest nation in the history of the Four Nations, as they've always been, but will regrow to a population of at least fourteen-hundred-eighty-two, excluding the Air Acolytes, who will be a collection of at least six-hundred-eighty people that embrace the Air Nation traditions. One of the strongest of the elderly Air Nomads will be descended from Avatar Aang's bloodline. The history of their origins restored and their right to endure another potential genocide, due to their peaceful nature and culture, assured once made, like the Southern Water Tribe, safe from wars."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Wow, that's…that's good to know."

-x-

Yue awoke to the next day, rested and full of energy, followed by her bison.

"Grrr," Korra yawned, rising up and shaking the cobwebs of sleep off her fur.

"Any good dreams, Korra?" Yue asked her.

The Tribal Princess looked out her window at the great city of snow and ice and sighed in minor relief at how great it seemed the world was heading toward a better future. Once she and Korra had eaten breakfast, the princess had placed the bison's saddle upon her and they took the sky above the city.

"Grrr!" Korra growled, stretching out her legs and tail as she did an aerial loop.

"Ha-ha-ha!" Yue cheered.

Far below in the water, the southern warrior, Sokka, having developed an interest in Eel Hounds as a result of riding one from Piandao, rode one he was training whenever aerial travel was a luxury he couldn't use. He saw the little Flying Bison and her owner soaring around the air like wild Dragonflies. As he reached the large walls of snow-covered ice, he saw, just for a moment, a strange creature that seemed like a reptilian beast, but seemed to have cat-like traits, as well. It looked at him…and smiled an unusual smile that Sokka couldn't feel any measure of intimidation from it.

_Live life without fear, Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe,_ he heard a voice, the creature's, in his head, just as it disappeared from sight.

He sighed as he realized that it was a spirit he had been contacted by, and he had a feeling that he would be seeing several of them later in his life, which probably meant he had more enlightened by the spiritual beliefs of this world.

The End

A/N: Read and review, please! Let me know what you think about the Spirit of Causality. See ya!


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